


Mosaic

by yxuraffectionatelaurens



Series: there is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, Fix-it after that last fic, Fluff, Forgiveness, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, for those of you asking for a sequel, literally so much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yxuraffectionatelaurens/pseuds/yxuraffectionatelaurens
Summary: A year and a half after Alexander broke his heart, Christmas rolls around, and John Laurens thinks in flowers and Christmas lights.
Small little fic following the events of Glass.





	Mosaic

christmas lights drip like icicles from the apartment. to say john’s obsessed isn’t a stretch, their tangled wires wrapping around his arms, hanging across his shoulders, tiny fluorescent bulbs and little pools of light across the landscapes of his sweater.

even in the bedroom, draping the windows. the only 6 am light, a soft breath in the stillness of the eager night. rhythm, a soothing melody, one with his fingerprints pressed in the malleable softness. in, out, in, out, mouth slack, hair matted to one side.

reaching for his phone - _click_ -

a picture of hands twined together and soft calloused fingertips, stolen off eliza’s instagram, stolen first from their moment. central park in the snow. friends trailing behind them like soap running down a drain, meandering, casual, laughing when a new friend, blonde hair and a cheeky smile, sees tangled fingers and warm scarves and something not quite like lovesick glances, something warmer and less aching. trusting, kind, smells too much like long mornings and vanilla in coffee. peppermint shampoo, arms wrapped around each other in the early steam, john’s hands massaging shampoo into his hair. looks like stress and pain and hurt being beaten away by hot water and leave skin pink and clean.

“didn't know those two were together,” ben whispers, like a secret, a fragile, careful walk around broken glass - 

there’s nothing fragile or broken in the way john smiles, draws their conjoined hands up for a stray kiss on two rough knuckles. a white winter of new york, preserved in a snow globe, shaken and flurried and snow drifting in endless encompassment. the group stops to watch skaters on a glossy rink, blades sliding through the ice - a wince, john’s ears ringing too familiar, then an arm around his shoulders. 

“oh, they're more than just together. they've been through hell, those two, can't even believe they're still a thing.” hercules, arm linked through beth’s, snowflakes against dark skin, like freckles on his purple mittens. “but they’re stubborn asses, so.”

john and Alex - Alexandjohn, once they remembered how to be Alex and john first - a mosaic of glass in an old, off white church. colored light bleeding off their skin, staining the snow in central park, staining the snow outside john’s window as flakes freeze against the panes, staining their bedsheets in hues john only dreams of painting.

red fingers, pink cheeks, brown eyes, teal scarf flowing around alex’s neck, discolored orange laces in beaten black shoes, blue hearts a steady yellow beat. 

john is five, coloring a tiny rainbow over the lines of the coloring book - they were always too controlling and firm for his liking - face squinted in concentration. _red orange yellow green blue,_ his favorite, _purple, that really pretty purpley blue color with the tip snapped off_. he peels the wrappers off, crayon shavings under his fingernails, giggling when martha tells him they’re naked now.

john is twenty-eight in june, the one being unwrapped. Alex traces a thousand rainbows scattered across his skin, chipped pride parade paint textured under his fingers. john is undone - smeared _red and orange and yellow and green and blue and purple_ across his skin that Alex kisses. kisses his cheeks, his nose, his lips, anywhere that he can write his name in between the freckles spattered across his skin. peels his clothes off slowly and breathes slowly and Alex laughs without hesitation.

Alex remembers offhandedly that they haven't done this in a year, since before he told him, since before john looked at him with broken eyes. pausing, only a moment before john, a john who has learned to trust him again, a john who only wants and wants and loves. 

instead of pushing him away, john pulls him close. leaves purple-blue flowers up the side of his neck. covered in paint and sparkles and want, Alex leads him to the couch and lays him down and the only air they breath together is littered with the words _i am yours_ and john believes him.

john is twenty-eight in december, and the light shining through the colored glass makes the snow outside seem dim. glass stitched together carefully, pale shades of warm light in a stained glass window, Alex’s eyes fluttering softly, curled in the sheets at his side.

the radiator, an endless hum, artificial heat trailing across his bare arms, prickling with it. smells like winter, winter is everywhere, the artificial warmth and freshly washed sweaters and early snow storms and cinnamon. Alex insists on making everything peppermint flavor, sprinkles bits of candy canes on everything when he can get his hands on it. john sings all the christmas carols so loudly that Alex can't help but laugh and trail his fingers up john’s arm, mumbling a melody into his shoulder, changing the lyrics until they're dirtier than peggy’s jokes and john’s laughing as he dries the dishes.

Alex. black hair tangles in his fingers. he kissed him in central park that day. anxious to not let him forget, Alex’s lips a flurried mess, snowy hair. “i love you.”

laf and adrienne are in fits over some recalled inside joke, their faces twisted in something abstractly natural. irreplicable. the best things, john has decided, usually are. 

“i love you, too,” and the words are as natural as his own name.

he’s planting white tulips in the dark corners of Alex’s mind, and his own, the places where doubt festers - all the white outside is making john’s tired mind softened, his frayed nerves and burnt out systems quieting to let in a little more natural light. the flowers like the sunlight more, and john worked as a cashier at a flower shop for a while. easy to speak in the way nature does, threading silky petals and gentle colors where words didn’t fit.

Alex, a quiet dawn over a quieter horizon, yawning as he draws john in. follows the guidance of the touch, rolls into an embrace that feels like Alex and Alex and Alex. everything fades except the earth in his eyes.

“g’morning.” snow frosting the room, john’s lips curling into a smile. tangled together, fingers, legs, hearts, muggy kisses ruined by clear smiles. Alex’s fingers brush against john’s jawline, pulling him close until where they end is indistinguishable. the sheets. Alex. john. there’s no beginning to their shapes, no end, only Alex kissing him and john’s fingers disappearing into hair and lazy smiles.

Alex rests his chin on john’s chest. crusted with sleep at the corners of his mouth, hands twining below the sheets. hope flourishes, a tiny garden of flowers growing in the valleys between their fingers, knuckles sprouting in shades of blue peonies, the kind Alex wants when march rolls around. lavender ripped out, weeded carefully with caution from the poisonous parts of him, replaced with veins of ivy in the windows to his heart. roses and gardenias and delphinium and tulips, white, white tulips.

“think santa came by last night?”

“god, i hope not.” Alex pulls john close enough to feel his soft breaths. “that would’ve been awkward for all three of us. we don’t even have a chimney, can you imagine, santa claus stumbling in here while i had you up against --”

john shuts him up with a kiss and a laugh full of the stars.

lying at each other’s sides, relaxed, peppermint and gentle traces of liquor, full. he must’ve had an artist’s vision when he saved that key, his knuckles cracked and color bleeding through, the need to create, _cre-a-tiv-i-ty_ , the clicks of the typewriter keys sounding more like syllables when Alex was hunched over the damned thing at one in the morning.

not like john won’t give away his entire inheritance to make sure Alex can always have a way to write.

a fake christmas tree, two feet of plastic branches and needles - if they ever move out of the city, john hopes they can get a real one. strung with more christmas lights in front of a snowy window, over a small heap of presents. john knows it’s waiting out there for them when they decide to get up.

more slow kissing. Alex’s fingers work curls into something resembling a braid. “i wanna open presents.” john feels himself slipping, sliding into a half asleep state. comfortable, though, and he settles into Alex's arms.

“‘m half surprised you weren't up at five running out to start ripping stuff open like last year. we can get out of bed, heat up the cinnamon rolls, start opening stuff, if you want.”

sighs into hair, hints of contentment slipping into warm touches. “i’m busy stealing your body heat. fuck you for being so warm. and this is the first you've sat still in way too long.”

when Alex presses his lips to john’s forehead, his facial hair tickles against john’s nose and makes him laugh.

105.7 fm, sheets shifting and rustling, Alex tosses his phone back on the floor. christmas music muffled by where it lands on john’s jeans, but still nice, soft on his ears. kisses Alex as he moves back into bed. 

“what do you want to do today, j?”

“mmm, i can think of a few things.”

“yeah?” Alex’s face has memorized the smirk he wears. 

john laughs, beating away his tone. “we could take a walk in the snow, go to bryant park and rent skates, head over to herc and beth’s before dinner with the schuylers tonight, play the new _battlefront…_ ”

Alex gasps, pulling away from a near kiss to look hurt. “john laurens. i… i’m shocked. my fiancé. has been peeking at his christmas presents.”

john dives away from him, laughing, squirming away - Alex breaks into laughter, chasing him with kisses, his neck, his cheeks, wrestling and pressing kisses all over his face. “no, i didn’t, ‘lex, i swear, i’d never lie to you like that, i didn’t peek.”

Alex is pulling closer, chrysanthemums in his chuckles, cocoa in his eyes, smothering lips. mariah carey is a rhythm under their laughter, and Alex’s cheeks are flushed. “how the hell’d you know i got you _battlefront_? laf swore secrecy, and even peggy wouldn’t do that to me.”

“because you’re a horrible liar, and i was _there_ when you bought the damn thing!”

“i hate you.” giggling, snowflakes press patterns against the glass, and it still smells like the heater. christmas is slathered across the bedroom, across the whole apartment, random bits of tinsel weaved through their clothes, scraps of wreaths from the one hanging off their door that’s falling apart on their furniture. john’s christmas lights make the whole room a galaxy.

john sings along with the radio, reaching for Alex’s hands, responding with a face asking for forgiveness, “all i want for christmas is you.”

forgiveness is something they’ve gotten good at.

Alex laughs, clambers off the bed to pull on jeans, tosses john his gryffindor sweats, pushes him back down to climb on him and kiss more. john is too lost in his laughter, his sleepy yawns, fingers tangling in hair gently, to not feel his heart try to beat itself out of his chest.

finally, Alex’s limbs grow heavy, and he just lies on top of john, sighs into his hair.

when he starts speaking again, voice heavy with an accent john rarely hears any more, spanish spills against his neck. pulls back slightly so john can see his eyes, see the sincerity behind them.

(last night, they sat at the fire, touching hands, talking about past christmases. john talked about south carolina’s rare snows, sitting around the tree with his siblings, always getting what he asked for, him and martha helping with companies that bought presents for homeless children when they were older. alex talked about the celebrations in the caribbean, a beautiful, colorful combination of traditions, christmas carols, his mother stroking his hair and getting him the best present she could afford. Alex choked up and stopped talking about it, _she would’ve loved you, j._ )

“ _eres el amor de mi vida,_ john. fuck, _eres lo mejor de mi vida. Te amo,_ I love you, I love you, _soy todo tuyo, y lo eres todo para mi_.” gentle, gentle, gentle, the best kind of soft, lips against john’s jawline. “ _quiero hacerte el amor dulcemente_.”

john wants to tease him, say _well not now, we’ve got presents to open_ , but his eyes sting and he smiles, feeling the sheets a warm home, Alex a warmer one. his words are lost. he imagines primrose blossoms braided through Alex’s soft dark hair, feels the scent of them mingled with the peppermint when Alex kisses him so gently that john can feel himself dissolving beneath it. 

instead, he reaches to the nightstand, pulls Alex’s fingers towards his heart. eyes trained, following the ring slipping onto his finger, a tiny familiar smile. he hates seeing the way his hand looks without it, even though they never sleep with them on. 

john remembers picking it out with eliza, the way she told him Alex would surely cry when john proposed. a tiny thread of diamond through the band. 

john remembers alex, biting through tears, able to hold it down beneath a beaming smile, until he turned it over in his palm. seeing the inner side of the band was when he broke down.

_a h j l._

every morning he slips it onto Alex’s finger and Alex grabs his hand to do the same with his own engagement ring.

michael bublé has never sounded so nice at six a.m. Alex twines their fingers together, looks at the silver glinting off their ring fingers, and john decides it’s pretty damn beautiful. usually, Alex would be trying to perform a seductive version of jingle bells. his eyes are caught on their rings.

“he wants to come to the wedding, Alex.”

surprise? concern? anger? no, joy. Alex’s eyes are shining through with a million colors, beaming. “your dad? he said so?”

“yeah.” the word feels weird in his mouth, so many years of henry trying to come to terms, years of fighting, years of time spent in anguish replaced. “martha says he’s coming ‘round.”

Alex laughs. “i hope he’s not expecting me to kiss his ass or get behind his political bullshit.” fingers untangling, Alex shuffles to the dresser. john’s old baseball sweatshirt, god, that thing’s falling apart, and Alex tosses a christmas sweater at him. it smells like lafayette and adrienne’s apartment. “get off your ass, babe, these presents aren’t going to open themselves.”

john feels stress slide off his shoulders, if it was ever there at all. an artist’s vision. josh groban’s song from _polar express_ \- john loves that movie - on the radio from the floor. Alex throwing his hair into a messy bun. christmas lights twinkling in a frame around the window. cinnamon rolls in the kitchen. a voicemail from their friends on his own phone, probably with excited _merry christmas_ es and _see you tonight_ s and _don’t let Alex get drunk before you even get here_ s. Alex throwing gold tinsel around john’s waist and pulling him closer to kiss his cheek.

new york glitters under a blanket of snow. Alex’s breath fogs on the window. they stare out at the skyline, arms wrapped around each other, powder heaped on the fire escape. john lets their pinkies connect, stares a moment at their matching rings. head rests against Alex’s shoulder.

Alex mumbles into his hair. john doesn’t have to look to know his smile. Alex pulls their hands up to kiss john’s wrist - the scars, some newer than others, under his lips. the worst from a year and a half ago, a couple newer, but all healing. if kisses left marks the same way his scars do, john is certain they would far outweigh the scars up his arm.

“merry christmas, john.”

“merry christmas, _cariño_.”


End file.
